


Archer Queen

by DesertVixen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Original work - Freeform, The Time of Heroines
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-09
Updated: 2020-08-09
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25795774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertVixen/pseuds/DesertVixen
Summary: Domenika, fallen Queen of Archers, has not abandoned the people who believed in her
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: Original Works Opportunity 2020





	Archer Queen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jungle_ride](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jungle_ride/gifts).



Once everyone had known her story.

Songs had been sung of Domenika, the Archer Queen who led the fabled defense of the walled city of Meriden, where the good Queen Laura was hidden with her children, including the rightful young king Leo.

The most famous picture showed Domenika leaning over the wall, her raven locks tumbling over her shoulders as she pulled the bowstring back. It was said that her midnight blue eyes were as sharp as those of the hawk who was her constant companion. She was beautiful and deadly, and her arrows struck fear into the hearts of men who feared little else. 

During the war, she had been courted by many noble warriors, but had chosen to marry Artos, the young baron known for his trickster abilities, as well as being the only man who could outshoot her. Their love had been one immortalized in songs and stories, but was also a tragic one, when the pair were killed at the Battle of the Ruby River. Their young king Leo was victorious at barely sixteen, but Domenika and Artos lay down their lives for his victory. Some said their spirits would return when their people needed them most, that they were merely sleeping.

But that had been in the days immediately after the war, and as the men and women who had lived in those days passed, so did the memory of the brave Queen of the Archers who had helped save the future of her people. 

Some said she was only a myth, and ever had been – that all the stories of those days were only that – stories. Stories of a golden age that never was, of men and women who were larger than life because they were imaginary. Perhaps there had been a woman who helped supply the men with arrows, but that was as far as it went. Everyone knew that women had no place on the battlefield.

Later, when Domenika and Artos and Laura and Leo slept in their graves – if they had ever existed – their prosperous descendants were defeated by invaders from the sea. Their prosperity enabled them to purchase what they thought was safety – less and less safety for more and more money with every payment, until finally there was no money and no safety, and the invaders were in power. 

Some lamented that the day of heroes was gone, that there were no brave men to lead them against the invaders. They seemed to forget that there had ever been brave women.

But there were still people who remembered the Archer Queen, people who had never forgotten the stories they had been told of the brave woman who defended her queen. There were some stories that maybe were just stories, like the tale that she could actually turn into a hawk. 

Young women, inspired by the stories of the Archer Queen, began to fight back – some even picking up bows and following in the steps of the Archer Queen. There was no walled city to defend, but they could take the fight to the enemy. They called themselves Archers in her honor and began to show that stories had power.

And then, one night, an archer saw the Archer Queen. Some of her fellow Archers thought she was dreaming, but Helena knew she hadn’t imagined the woman.

After all, she had saved Helena’s life. If she hadn’t seen the woman, hadn’t stopped when the black-haired woman put her fingers to her lips, she knew she would have been caught in their trap.

Helena knew that the woman had smiled at her, that there had been a hawk perched on her shoulder, that she had carried a bow. She had seen what she had seen, and no one could convince her otherwise.

The Archer Queen had saved one of her archers. Helena resolved she would have to prove worthy of the rescue.

**Author's Note:**

> So I hope you liked this! It didn't quite go where I thought it was going to go, but I liked the idea of a warrior queen angel aiding women.


End file.
